Sunday, March 9, 2008

US PIRG Releases Transit Report

The US Public Interest Research Group released a report titled 'A Better Way to Go' this week. If you're a transit advocate and need some ammo for any coming fights I highly recommend it. The chapter that most interested me was the one about underinvestment in transit. They did some digging and found out how much investment we've made in transit versus highways in this country and even I was shocked at the chart. And this is just highways...not local roads, parking spaces etc.

A few other pieces of information from the report:

Carbon dioxide from our automobiles equals the total emissions from Germany, Japan and Canada.

Commercial Parking lots in this country cover more space than the state of Delaware.

Rail saves a lot of oil with heavy rail systems like the subways in New York and Washington DC doing most of the heavy lifting. The chart below shows oil savings from LRT.

Investments in transit create 19% more jobs than equivalent investments in roads.

In 2005, the subsidy to highways was $39 billion dollars.

In 2005, the state expenditure on highways was $100 B dollars. Transit was $7.8B

And many more...

At the end of the report PIRG advocates that we stop spending money on new highways and shift to building more transit. The Interstate Highway Program has funded all of the necessary highways in this country and its time to fill the gap between what was neglected in the last half of the 2oth century.

3 comments:

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) is committed to improving public transportation by helping to make it work faster and cleaner for all of us. That’s where you come in. We need a new vision for public transportation in America, so we're calling on you to film it.

We want you to create your most persuasive video about why we need more and better public transportation. What should a 21st century transit system look like or not look like? Perhaps your vision focuses on biking, walking, and ultra-convenient mass transit, or perhaps it presents the endless auto gridlock and rising gas prices of today. The only limit is your imagination!

We'll use the winning videos to help decision-makers imagine with us a better future and see the dangers of keeping the status quo. Your video will be a critical part of an effort to educate local and state representatives, and to call on Washington, D.C. to change the way it funds our transportation system.

The winner will receive a $500 prize and will be featured on our website. Runners-up will win $250, $150, and honorable mentions will receive a one-year membership to U.S. PIRG.

You can see our sample video and learn more about the issues and the contest here: http://www.uspirg.org/transit-video-contest

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